Is obesity in this baby's future?: It could depend on the yogurt's fat content.Courtesy Clover_1Last Christmas, my son's girlfriend introduced me to honey-flavored yogurt, a delicious concoction of creamy sweetness. I've never been a fan of yogurt, but I immediately fell in love with this stuff, and try to keep a container of it on-hand in the fridge at all times. I can't seem to get enough of it.

One of the reasons it's so tasty is because it's made with whole milk which makes it high in fat, and therefore will make anyone who ingests it high in fat, too. Right? Maybe not.

Two new studies seem to point to just the opposite. Several middle-aged men who participated in a Swedish study and consumed high-fat dairy products, were tracked over a 12 year period and showed much less propensity of becoming obese when compared to men who followed a low or no high-fat diet in the same study. The research appeared in the journal Scandinavian Journal of Primary Health Care.

In the second study involving the meta-analysis of 16 empirical studies showed that - despite working under the hypothesis that a diet of high-fat foods leads to higher heart disease risk and contributes to obesity - no evidence supporting the claim was found. Actually, according to the study which appeared in the European Journal of Nutrition, consumption of high-fat dairy products were instead associated with a lower obesity risk.

Non-fat and low-fat yogurts still command a larger portion of the market but on the organic side of the things products with higher saturated fat content is, surprisingly, on the upswing. It's unclear why that is. A previous study involving children also showed that a low-fat diet was more likely to lead to obesity.

"There may be bio-active substances in the milk fat that may be altering our metabolism in a way that helps us utilize the fat and burn it for energy, rather than storing it in our bodies," said Greg Miller, of the National Dairy Council.

Besides the newly associated weight benefits, whole organic milk also contains higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids which help reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases. It's also speculated that consumption of higher fat content may lead to a greater and faster feeling of being satisfied and full, and lead to a sooner cessation of the urge to eat.

For purely scientific reasons I'll be heading for the refrigerator in a moment to see if that's the case.

If your buzz from Valentine's Day hasn't worn off just yet, here's news that will do just that. The folks at MinuteEarth this week look at how rare monogamy actually is among the sexes of Earth's species.

This BBC documentary produced a few years back provides some valuable insight and information involving some of the dinosaurs included in the Science Museum of Minnesota's new upcoming exhibit Ultimate Dinosaurs which opens March 1.

Kilauea at night: a massive magma chamber has been detected beneath the volcano's East Rift Zone.Courtesy Mark RyanResearchers from the University of Miami Rosentiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science have detected a new, massive magma chamber beneath Kilauea, the most active volcano in the world.

By analyzing seismic waves that traveled through the volcano, scientists from the school's geology and geophysics departments have been able to piece together a 3-dimensional velocity model of what's taking place deep below the volcano's caldera.

"It was known before that Kilauea had small, shallow magma chambers," said Guoqing Lin, lead author of the study. "This study is the first geophysical observation that large magma chambers exist in the deep oceanic crust below."

Located in oceanic crust between 5 and 6.8 miles beneath the volcano's East Rift Zone, the new chamber has been determined to be several kilometers in diameter. The seismic data also revealed that it's lava is composed of a slushy mixture of about 10 percent magma and 90 percent crystal.

According to co-author and professor of geology and geophysics, Falk Amelung, the information is useful in understanding magma bodies and a high priority for the researchers because of the possible hazards created by the volcano.

"Kilauea volcano produces many small earthquakes and paying particular attention to new seismic activity near this body will help us to better understand where future lava eruptions will come from," he said.
Kilauea has been active for more than 30 years and is located in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park on the Big Island of Hawaii.

The Canadian Rockies: Source of a new treasure trove of amazing Cambrian fossilsCourtesy Mark RyanJust over a century ago, paleontologist Charles Doolittle Walcott discovered a truly remarkable fossil quarry in British Columbia. The site, known as the Burgess Shale, was found on Mt. Field in Yoho National Park, and contained an abundant amount of fossilized remains of soft-bodied creatures - several new to science - from the Cambrian Period around 505 million years ago. In 1989, paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould detailed the spectacular find and its implications in a book titled, "Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History".

Burgess Shale trilobite: Science Museum of Minnesota collection.Courtesy Mark RyanThis week, a newly discovered fossil site, located in the same shale formation high in the Canadian Rockies but 26 miles southeast of Walcott's quarry, was announced in the journal Nature Communications. The new location, named Marble Canyon, is proving to be another Lagerstätte, a sedimentary deposit of extraordinary and exceptionally preserved fossils. The discoverers report that of the 3000 specimens found so far and representing 55 species, about half are invertebrates also found at the Walcott Quarry, and in some cases are more abundant and better preserved.

"[T]here is a high possibility that we'll eventually find more species here than at the original Yoho National Park site, and potentially more than from anywhere else in the world," said lead author Jean-Bernard Caron, an invertebrate paleontologist at Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum.

So far twenty-two percent of the species discovered at Marble Canyon are new to science. The formation is estimated to be about 100,000 years younger than the original site. China's Chengjiang fossil beds have produced some of the same kinds of animals found at Marble Canyon and is about 10 million years older.

Arthropods (e.g. trilobites) are the most common animals found in the Burgess Shale, and finely preserved fossils from the new site provide remarkable views of neural tissues, retinas, corneas, some internal organs.

Back in 2012, Gaines and his colleagues followed the Burgess shale exposures on foot, trekking across the mountainsides in hopes of finding new fossils sites. What they discovered at Marble Canyon is far more than they could have wished for.

"I think the most profound implication is that the Burgess Shale can't just be the only one that there is," Gaines said. "There's a lot more out there in the Canadian Rockies and other places."

Any fossil remains uncovered at Marble Canyon and at similar sites will only add to our understanding of evolution and how complex life developed during the Cambrian Explosion.

TCharles DarwinCourtesy Mark Ryanoday marks the 205th anniversary of the birth of geologist and naturalist Charles Darwin. Born in 1809 in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England, Darwin revolutionized the world of science with 1859 publication of On the Origin of Species. You can learn more about him here and here.

Heritage Crew member teaching about excavation levels.Courtesy Science Museum of MinnesotaKids at North Dale screening dirt with Heritage Member EliasCourtesy Science Museum of MinnesotaDecember 2013 through February 2014, Heritage Crew went out to do outreach activities at North Dale Rec Center. For six days we taught elementary school aged kids about archaeology and the Sheffield Site. Some activities were learning Oneota pottery, identifying animal bones in archaeology, and stone tools. We created excavation boxes allowing the kids to get a an idea of what an archaeological dig is like. The kids measured a unit, and then dug down layer by layer until they found "artifacts" and "features" that we had set up. Archaeologist, Dr Ed Fleming, let us use copies of the level sheets that were used at Sheffield Site, so the kids could record their findings. We taught them about mapping each level to record artifacts and features, and why archaeologists use this method in the field. We had fun during this experience, and hope to do more outreaches like this in the future.